Paris Clips

One of several Quartier Latin Spanish
football fan bistros.

Saving Things and Undercover
Ops

by Ric Erickson

Paris:- Monday, 29. May 2000:- In the course of a
normal week in Paris fragments of conversations pass my
ears that don't fit into full features. They are whatever
it is that I originally thought was destined for this
column - Café Metropole - but never seem to have on
tap when it comes time to write it.

"Save the Grand
Palais!"

In the Bouquet I find Lucile and Dimitri having their
pre-cocktail cocktails, before going across the street for
the wine-and-cheese at Au Vin des Rues, which is doing its
bit for the 'Mai des Montparnos.' Dimitri says the
restaurant always has music on Thursdays, but it is only
Tuesday.

The 'Montparnos' are in Au Vin des Rues, a little bit
more than they usually are, for the vernissage. A small TV
set is stacked up on a table, showing an artistic video of
village accordion playing, with lots of audio; a video made
so long a go that the only colors in it are red
tablecloths.

If I recall correctly, this video may be two hours or
ten kilometres long, so I step outside to keep getting
as much air as I can
while I can get it. The Rue Boulard is not a prize-winner,
but it is refreshing to be able to see as far as several
hundred metres in either direction.

Everywhere you go
in Paris you see these poor, abandoned bicycles, with flat
tires. Or do flat tires discourage thieves?

Marc Zuate has stepped out too, and I think he is
someone else I met in the Mairie of the 6th, but he is not
that photographer at all but a painter and his children are
on the café's walls.

In the course of our self-introductions, Marc says he is
active in the 'Save the Grand Palais' movement. After its
erection for the 1900 Universal Expo it was to have been
torn down - like the Tour Eiffel after ten years - but
Parisians liked it a lot and kept it too.

It had a wonderful life being the location of all the
big art 'salons' every year, as well as being the home of
the Salons de l'Automobile when they got started. Somehow,
fairly recently, the artists and their several annual
salons were kicked out - and they have had to make do with
substitutes, sometimes in tents.

We agree this is very bush-league. These affairs like
the present 'Mai des Montparnos' are fine, but do not let
all of the city's artists get to be in one place where they
can see each other, and all be seen together.

I decide the Grand Palais will be a fine subject for a
feature. But I find I have little more than hints about its
grandeur which means doing some research for it - so I put
the idea on the spike I call 'one of these days.'

What little research I do turns up the Rue Visconti by
chance and this becomes the 'feature of the week'
instead.

Winner of the Bikini Wars

Last week Paris was the scene of a mass street-poster
display I call the 'bikini wars.' I don't know how these
things are co-coordinated, but several popular-priced
textile chains all appeared with either mini-franc bikinis
or other underwear, shown on models with more thin flesh
showing than fabrics.

In spring this is good for the spirit. Getting an
advance view of what may be seen on French beaches this
summer tends to dispel the idea of only seeing sunburn for
the first week of it.

But the 'bikini wars' only last until this week's
posters replace last week's. What a pleasant surprise it
has been to see that the geniuses at the Aubade
corset-works have decided to take over the poster spots
with their habitual old-style well-formed - and well-fed? -
models, photographed by a maniac with an obsession for
curves.

If Aubade itself decided to join the 'bikini wars' the
main problem would be finding enough well-rounded people to
fill them, because all the others would have to compete too
or be left in Aubade's dust.

Park Your Cars -
Outside!

There are places in Paris where walking against a 'red
man' signal is risky. I was waiting at one of these when a
short old lady beside me, who was also waiting for the
'green man,' said, "I thought they were supposed to park
their cars outside the 'gates' of Paris."

The cars, trucks, taxis, scooters, motorcycles and buses
pouring in from the Porte d'Orléans were not only
noisily and stinkingly formidable; they seemed to be overly
aggressive as well.

If I could have heard her better, I think she was about
to say that Paris voters are not impressed with the nine
different plans of one mayoralty candidate to abolish
traffic from the Place de la Concorde - which is not
normally used as a route by little old ladies - for
collecting their pension cheques.

Valencia v.s. Real
Madrid

Before Wednesday's football match, the Quartier Latin
was invaded by hordes of Spanish football fans who were
easy to spot on account of their very brightly colored
regalia, and easy to hear because of their enthusiasm for
singing loudly in unison.

The Quartier Latin's own local color was totally
outclassed by these fans, who acted a bit as if
they hadn't seen their
cousins from either city - on neutral ground - for some
time and therefore decided to celebrate a victory a few
hours in advance of the game's outcome.

A tiny
fraction of Valencia's good-time football fans - before the
march.

Café-keepers and their waiters also seemed
willing to be hard-pressed to handle the excessive business
the Spaniards were spreading around. Like me, they may
actually hope that Spain decides to hold all of its future
matches in Paris.

Mad as a Hatter

No matter where you go in Paris - or anywhere, probably
- you don't see many hat shops, especially not for men. It
used to be that there was more to headgear than fake
baseball caps and ugly tractor-driver lids.

It is probably no secret that the Quartier Latin is in
the process of being invaded by branch outlets of the
world's textile chains. The Saint-Honoré 'name'
places are coming to the Left Bank if they haven't already
arrived.

You still won't find any of these in the Rue
Saint-André-des-Arts, but it does have its
102-year-old men's and women's clothing shop named
'Latreille' which, to me, has alwaysseemed totally out of
place.